National Achievement Survey (NAS)

National Achievement Survey (NAS)- Relevance for UPSC Exam

• GS Paper 2: Governance, Administration and Challenges- Issues relating to development and management of Social Sector/Services relating to Health; Education and Human Resources.

National Achievement Survey (NAS)

• The Government of India has been implementing a rolling program of sample-based National Achievement Survey (NAS) aimed at classes III, V, VIII and X with a cycle period of three years.

What is National Achievement Survey (NAS)?

• About: National Achievement Survey (NAS) is a nationally representative large-scale survey of students’ learning undertaken by the Ministry of Education, Government of India.
  • NAS gives a system-level reflection on the effectiveness of school education.
• Objective: The aim and objective of NAS is to evaluate children’s progress and learning competencies as an indicator of the health of the education system, so as to take appropriate steps for remedial actions at different levels.
• Development: The tools and assessment of the National Achievement Survey (NAS) has been developed by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT).
• Conducting Authority: National Achievement Survey (NAS) level survey would be conducted by the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) as Assessment Administrator.
• Eligible Institutions and Students: NAS is conducted for Grade 3, 5, 8 and 10 students of State Govt. schools, Govt. Aided schools, Private Unaided recognized schools and Central Government schools.
• Benefit: NAS findings help compare the performance across the spectrum and across the population in order to find the desired direction for improvements.
  • The National Achievement Survey (NAS) goes beyond the scorecard and includes the background variables to correlate students’ performance in different learning outcomes vis-a-vis contextual variables.

Key Features of the National Achievement Survey (NAS)

• National Achievement Survey (NAS) provides a system-level reflection on the effectiveness of school education.
• Data Collection: National Achievement Survey (NAS) collects information on relevant background variables such as school environment, teaching processes, and student home and background factors.
• Coverage: NAS covers the whole spectrum of schools including Government schools (both State and Central government), Government-aided schools, and Private schools across India.

Previous National Achievement Surveys (NAS)

• The National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) has been periodically conducting National Achievement Surveys (NAS) since 2001.
• Five rounds of NAS have been completed till 2017, wherein the first three rounds covered Class III, V and VIII and in the last two rounds, NAS also covered Class X.
• National Achievement Survey (NAS) 2021:
  • Class 3 & 5: Subjects covered are Language, Mathematics & EVS for class 3 & 5.
  • Class 8: Mathematics, Science & Social Science for class 8 and
  • Class 10: Language, Mathematics, Science, Social Science and English for class 10.
  • Participation: About 34 lakh students of 1.18 lakh schools from both rural and urban areas participated in NAS 2021.

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